VALERIO SLAY: 'Gunman' retracts confession

The confessed gunman in the murder of Government Corporate Counsel Macario Valerio has retracted and now points to the alleged lover of Macario's widow as the killer.

In his new statement, Martin Jimenez told state prosecutors that Valerio was shot and killed by Antonio Cabador, a General Santos City policeman, who remains at large.

However, National Bureau of Investigation Director Federico Opinion Jr. brushed aside Jimenez's retraction.

"We have two witnesses who are saying that it was he (Jimenez) who shot Valerio," he said. "It will not make a difference even if he changes his testimony."

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has instructed the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to bar Milagros Valerio a.k.a Myla and Marimar, Cabador, Jimenez, Samuel Baran and Geronimo Quintana a.k.a Boy Negro, from leaving the country.

Last Friday, the NBI charged Mrs. Valerio with parricide with the DOJ, but Assistant Chief State Prosecutor Severino Gana ordered her release as the case would be further investigated.

Cabador, along with Jimenez, Baran and Quintana, who are detained at the NBI, have been charged with murder.

Jimenez was also separately charged with illegal possession of firearms because NBI agents had seized an unlicensed caliber .38 revolver from him

Four witnesses had earlier identified Jimenez as the one who shot Valerio in front of his house in Quezon City in the early morning of March 18.

Jimenez tagged Mrs. Valerio as the mastermind and Cabador as the one who hired him to kill Valerio.

The NBI said Cabador was dismissed as bodyguard of former Lanao del Norte Rep. Mario Hisuler, Valerio's best friend and former law partner who himself was killed last May 1.